"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the Cross." --from, It Can't Happen Here, by Sinclair Lewis (1934)

Welcome to Rangeragainstwar.com. I feel that America's war with Iraq is an unjustified travesty, bleeding billions of dollars from our coffers every month, along with thousands of soldier's lives. And far from making our citizens safer from the threat of terrorism, it has served to animate a new generation of jihadists who correctly view our actions for what they are--neocolonialism, masquerading as liberation.

We know from history, our own included, that the impulse to be free from tyranny must arise from within a society. It can never be imposed upon a people, for the erstwhile liberators are eventually seen as the aggressors they are. Why did America choose this particular desert as the area to begin democratization, when citizens of so many other nations suffer the same or worse oppression, including those of our allies, like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia? Because Iraq held promise of a profit which justified to this administration the expense, both human and otherwise.

We are betting on the reverse domino-effect--democratize one Middle Eastern nation, and the others will follow suit. The domino effect did not pan out in Asia. It is no more valid a theory today.

The terrorists, Al Quaida and sympathizers, could not have hoped for a better outcome. We are killing more of our own than they did, and we are draining our resources at an unprecedented rate. And they do not even have to fight us; they can just keep us over there, depleting our resources,
while training their youth to become the new crop of militants. Martyrdom is an appealing thing, both to them and us. They are no less zealous in their cause; in fact, probably moreso.

My name is James Hruska, and I am a retired US Army officer. I served in the Special Forces in Vietnam, and later became a specialist in terrorism counteraction. Then, as now, I maintained that terrorism was a tactic, versus an entity, and therefore could never be defeated in a classical military sense, nor through traditional military means. Terrorism must be addressed via intelligence, police and judicial outlets. Now that we have toppled the Iraqi government for spurious reasons, the military is still being enlisted to address the topic of nation-building. Soldiers should not be tasked with what should be a State Department function, in unison with a true UN coalition.